Actresses hijacked bit parts with slap

HOLLYWOOD -- In hindsight, Disney should have made it the prize in a raffle.

HOLLYWOOD -- In hindsight, Disney should have made it the prize in a raffle.

Three weeks on St. Vincent with your best friend surrounded by the cast and crew of Pirates of the Caribbean.

This essentially was the job description for Vanessa Branch and Lauren Maher, the tarted-up wenches of the Pirates trilogy.

As Giselle and Scarlett, respectively, they entered the public consciousness in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl by slapping Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow.

For Branch, especially, it

was the slap heard 'round the world -- the clip of Depp reeling from his second blow ("I might have deserved that") was used to promote and laud the film.

The rewards for the two actresses -- unrecognizable without their wigs, decolletage and lurid makeup -- were personal as well as professional.

Yes, they have the skull rings worn by all the Pirates alumni, but they also have a friendship that not only turned a three-week shoot into a splendid vacation but also earned them much more screen time in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

"We became best friends, got to go down to the Caribbean with Johnny Depp," Maher says.

"Imagine an island paradise, all guys and us," Branch says. "When we got there, the guys straightened up, and that lasted for about a day."

Seeing the set for Tortuga for the first time was, she says, a transcendent experience.

"You had to take a 30-minute boat ride to this cove where the city was, and the ships are there," Branch says. "And as we arrived, the sun was rising, and you thought you were in another world."

Some of the transporting, though, wasn't all that enjoyable. Maher was not particularly taken with the corsets the two had to wear.

"It was really hot, and you can't breathe," she says. "A couple of the extras fainted. But it made me a little more disgruntled, which was very helpful for being a wench."

Like all of the cast, neither had any idea that when they landed bit parts in the first film they soon would be "livin' the ride" for three.

Branch and Maher were content with the prospect of a few minutes on-screen in At World's End, but when they showed up for the shoot, they were told they had bigger

parts.

"I think it may be because," Maher says, "(director) Gore (Verbinski) saw we were such good friends."